Hyperion Heights: The Methos Chronicle
by mysticknightsofscotland
Summary: Gideon comes to Hyperion Heights in search of the Guardian to help his father reunite with Belle in the afterlife. With a touch of Highlander: The Series courtesy of Methos, but in true OUAT fashion, familiarity with Highlander is not required. In fact I welcome feedback from readers unfamiliar with Methos. WIP, please send prompts.
1. Prodigal Son

**Chapter 1**

 **Prodigal Son**

The Morpheus Lounge was not what Gideon Gold expected. The smell alone almost made him turn back. The air was thick with smoke far too sweet to just be from cigarettes. If he wasn't in the Land Without Magic, he would have guessed that at least some of the scents came from magic. Whatever foul concoctions were being inhaled here, he wanted no part of it. But this was for Papa, so Gideon stepped inside, trying his best not to breathe too deeply.

Once his eyes adjusted to the dim light and hazy fog, he saw the unusual layout of the room. The bar was the hub, with a semicircle of pillowed alcoves where a typical establishment would have tables and booths. There was very little chatter because all the patrons seemed to be in various states of stupor. Even the music was lethargic, drifting from the ceiling in a style this world called New Age, if Gideon was not mistaken. He was almost surprised to see barstools at the bar since no one seemed to use them.

Thankfully, the bartender was not a hookah-smoking caterpillar, but a seemingly average guy. He watched Gideon approach before breaking into a snarky grin.

"Come in, said the spider to the fly," he said. "Are you sure you weren't looking for Roni's? She's just down the street."

Gideon took a seat at the bar and shook his head. "I'm looking for someone named Adam Pierson. I was told he works here."

The bartender frowned. "Who's asking?"

"I am. I just said that."

"You really aren't from around here, are you?" the bartender asked. "Fine. I'm Adam Pierson. Nice to meet you. And you are?"

"Oh. Sorry." Gideon reached out his hand. "Gideon Gold." Adam's hand was bony but his grip was strong. "I was hoping you could tell me what you know about the Guardian."

Adam hesitated. "You mean the UK newspaper _Guardian_ , or the US Coast Guard movie _Guardian_?"

"What?" Gideon shook his head. "No. That's not what I meant."

"How about I get you a drink while you think about that? Beer?"

Gideon had no intention of drinking, but he was too distracted to refuse. Could his lead have been wrong? Was he chasing after the wrong Guardian, or was it all the same one? How could he explain which Guardian he was looking for without sounding crazy to someone who may not know about magic after all?

Adam left a beer on the bar in front of Gideon and turned to help a patron who had just come in. "So, what will it be today, Detective? Manhattan or McCutcheon?"

The voice that responded was familiar, but disguised by a strange accent. "McCutcheon. But make it double and with a shot of Blue Lace."

Gideon looked up as the newcomer took a seat at the bar, his heart racing. It was Rumplestiltskin. Wearing far too much denim and looking just as sad and tired as he had the day they buried Belle, but it was him. "Papa," he said when he realized Rumple hadn't noticed him yet.

Rumple looked over without recognition and smirked. "Who's this, Pierson? You never mentioned you had a family. He looks just like you."

Adam was watching Gideon with a similar expression. "He does, doesn't he?" He set Rumple's ordered drink on the bar and shrugged. "Weaver, meet Gideon. Gideon, this is Detective Weaver."

Rumple – no, _Weaver_ – smiled and held out a hand. "Pleasure to meet you. Wish I could say I've heard all about you, but your old man is apparently quite the secret keeper."

All Gideon could do was stare as he shook his father's hand until the bartender tapped him on the shoulder and scolded, "Hey, Gid. Didn't your mother ever teach you manners? Pick your jaw up off the floor and let the detective have his hand back."

Gideon blinked. "Oh. Sorry." He lowered his gaze and was baffled again by the sight of his father wearing jeans and work boots.

"No matter," Weaver said. "First time meeting a cop, I suppose? Believe me, the job's not as glamorous as it looks on TV."

"Right." Gideon tried to laugh, but Weaver was already turning away, taking his drink off to one of the rooms in the back. He watched him go, wishing he could have the last five minutes back again.

The bartender was studying him when he managed to look away from the doorway his father had disappeared through. Gideon supposed they did look as if they could be related. They were both tall, slender, with dark hair and high cheekbones. He could understand how a stranger could mistake them for father and son. But it didn't explain why Adam Pierson didn't correct Weaver.

"Why did you lie to him?" Gideon asked.

All humor was gone from Adam's posture. "Oh, no. I did you a favor."

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 **A/N: Thanks for reading! This is a work in progress, so please send prompts!**

 **Also, If you're reading this with no knowledge of Highlander or Methos, please let me know! I want to know how well I'm doing making it accessible. If anything is confusing, I want to fix it (unless, of course confusion is warranted and not caused by lack of familiarity). I know there was no mention of Methos in this chapter, but we'll get there.**

 **Chapter titles come from _Highlander: The Series_ episode titles, but otherwise no relation to the episodes.**


	2. Methos

**Chapter 2**

 **Methos**

"How is pretending I'm your son doing me a favor?" Gideon asked.

"Would you rather Daddy Dearest lock you away in the asylum? Whoever he is to you, Weaver clearly doesn't know you. And I'm willing to bet you'd be better off without him as your father." Adam Pierson draped the dishtowel over his shoulder and crossed his arms. "Besides, you said it was me you were looking for. You said something about a Guardian?"

Gideon swallowed his defense of his father. Adam was right. If Rumplestiltskin was cursed with a new persona, no amount of arguing would convince Weaver that he had a son. He would just have to focus on his task and then worry about papa. "I came across an old book in my research. A Methos Chronicle? Trouble is, I can't read most of it. All I've been able to discover is that Methos is said to be five thousand years old, and that you were the foremost scholar on the project back in France."

"Methos," Adam echoed. He looked Gideon over, his gaze falling on his hands wrapped around his untouched beer. "Who did you say sent you?"

"No one. I'm researching the existence of a Guardian said to be capable of holding light and dark magic in balance, and I just wondered if the oldest living immortal might have ever encountered someone like that."

Adam laughed. "Right. Magic. They're just stories, kid. You do realize that, don't you? Hell, there are those who say that Methos is a myth."

"But not you," Gideon said.

The bartender shook his head and turned to lock up the cabinet behind him. "Why don't you go back to wherever it is you come from?"

"Not until I find a way to help my father."

Adam sighed and closed up the bar, locking everything away like a shopkeeper out to lunch. "Follow me," he said, leading the way to the back of the bar.

They paused by the room Detective Weaver had entered, and Gideon caught a glimpse through the curtain. His father was passed out on a pillow-laden couch, the empty glass tumbler sitting on the floor beneath a dangling hand.

"What is this place?" Gideon asked. "Those aren't just drinks you're serving, are they?" He recalled the name of the establishment. _The Morpheus Lounge_. "You're selling dream potions."

"Sounds a lot nicer the way you say it," Adam responded, pausing to glance inside at the detective. "You want a way to help your father? Start by giving him a reason not to spend his nights with imaginary lovers who will never be able to fill the hole in his heart. The Guardian can wait."

Gideon frowned. "How can I do that when he doesn't even know who I am?"

The look Adam gave him went from sympathetic to calculating in an instant. "You're going to want to talk to a white rabbit."

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 **A/N: I'm not used to chapters being so short, but then again, I'm not used to posting a WIP. Hoping to keep to a roughly-weekly update schedule. Please send prompts for things you'd like to see happen in this fic!**


	3. Through A Glass Darkly

**A/N: Grace5231973 requested an encounter between Gideon and Tilly.**

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 **Chapter 3**

 **Through A Glass Darkly**

 _A white rabbit._ The bartender at the Morpheus Lounge wasn't very forthcoming when Gideon asked what he meant. Just shrugged and expressed his confidence that Gideon would figure it out, if he truly was Detective Weaver's son.

So Gideon had left, but not before taking one more glance at his father laying in a drug-induced stupor in the back room of an establishment that Rumplestiltskin in his right mind would never have patroned.

All Gideon's life, Rumple had refrained from using the magic Gideon knew he possessed. True, much of that resolve came from Belle and the lack of any pressing need, but the lesson on avoiding nasty habits of any sort persisted throughout Gideon's childhood and adolescence. If Rumplestiltskin drank, it was never to extremes. Even if his immortality protected him from the effects of alcohol, he always made sure to set an example for his son. Getting black-out drunk was unthinkable for a man who valued control and memory. Gideon could still recall his exact words as they stood next to his mother's grave. _When you go on for too long, you forget what really matters. I never want to forget._ And yet, seeing Detective Weaver today, that's precisely what had happened.

It hurt more than Gideon wanted to admit. Intellectually, he knew that a curse must be responsible. His father had warned him about the possibility in his last letter. But he had also written about his failure to find the Guardian. _I'm afraid I may never be reunited with your mother now. I thought I had found the Guardian, but I was wrong, and now the darkness has a foothold again._ Papa had been losing hope, falling back into his "nasty habits". Was it not equally possible that this wasn't a realm-encompassing curse like the one that had brought Storybrooke to the Land Without Magic? It had been months since Gideon had heard from Rumple. Could he have done this to himself?

Rumplestiltskin had always acknowledged his failures and worked to make up for them. But what if his failure to find the Guardian was too much to overcome? Could it have been enough to make him want to forget Belle, Gideon, and everything that made him Rumple? Gideon didn't want to believe it, but without much to go on, the possibility remained.

He wasn't paying much attention to where he was walking until he noticed the troll under the bridge. It was sculpted around one of the supports and made to look as if it was made of stone. Even curiouser, it had a car trapped beneath one hand that looked very much like the yellow bug captured in the background of many of the Storybrooke photographs in his mother's travel album.

"Oi, Chip!" a female voice called from somewhere above him. "Why aren't you wearing a mask?"

Gideon looked up. A girl with blonde hair was sitting in a crevice near the troll's shoulder wearing a rabbit mask. _A white rabbit mask_.

"Chip?" Gideon echoed.

"Chip. Chip off the ol' block. Chip on your shoulder. Chip 'n' Dale. Fish and chips. Chippity chip chip..." The girl tilted her head as she rattled off her list.

"I'm afraid you have me confused with someone else," Gideon said. For a second there, he though she might have been the rabbit the bartender had told him to find.

The girl wasn't listening. She snapped her fingers and pointed at him. "Chipped cup!"

Gideon froze. "What?"

She pushed herself to her feet and jumped down in front of Gideon. Tilting her mask back on top of her head, she smiled and extended a hand. "Tilly's the name. Pleasure to meet you, Chip."

"My name's Gideon."

Tilly bit her lip as she considered him. "Nope. Still Chip." She shrugged. "Don't know why. Just a feeling, I suppose. Everybody in this town's wearing a mask except you. How come you're not wearing a mask to cover up your chip?"

Gideon shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Tilly seemed to shrink into herself. "No, I don't suppose you do. Nobody does. Crazy Tilly, totally bonkers, absolutely mad." She shoved her hands in her jacket pockets and turned away, scuffing her shoe against the wall. "The masks won't let them see. We're all pieces of the same puzzle, but someone's scattered the pieces."

 _The future is like a puzzle with missing pieces. Difficult to read, and never what you think._

It was another lesson Papa had taught him growing up. If this girl was the white rabbit Adam Pierson had told him to find, there must be a reason. The way she talked about masks, it almost sounded like she was part of a curse that somehow didn't effect her in quite the same way. Gideon wondered how many puzzle pieces he might miss if he didn't take a leap of faith and at least try to find out what Tilly might know.

"Wait," Gideon said. "These masks you keep talking about. Does Detective Weaver have one?"

Tilly spread her arms and threw her head back, laughing up at the troll. "We all have masks making us forget our true stories. I have a mask, Mr. Weaver has a mask, even this troll has a mask." She spun and dropped her arms, suddenly serious. "Everyone except you." She narrowed her eyes. "What do you want with Weaver?"

"I want to help him," Gideon said. "I want him to remember his story, to take off his mask."

"No." Tilly shook her head, backing away. "No, I don't think you want to do that."

"What? Why not?"

"No. You don't know Weaver. You don't want to do that." She pulled the rabbit mask back down over her face and ran off.

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 **A/N: Maybe biweekly is a more reasonable schedule for me. Anyways, hoping CampNaNoWriMo can keep me on track with this. Don't forget, I'm accepting prompts for this ongoing WIP.**


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